How to Transition Out of Corporate and into a Successful Entrepreneurial Venture

After a painful failed first venture, I know first-hand that those who choose to turn a hobby into a profession, start a consulting or coaching practice, launch or acquire a small business, or buy a franchise need to minimize risk every step of the way to maximize the possibility of success.

What I learned (and now teach) is that there is an art to quitting your job and going into business for yourself.

I personally stepped out of the corporate world not once, but twice. The first time was a complete disaster and I made pretty much every mistake in the book, even with an MBA from Harvard. I didn’t have a plan, I didn’t have the right mindset, I tried to do everything myself, and I learned the hard way. I can tell you that it cost me a lot of time, frustration, and money.

My second attempt at breaking free from corporate fatigue was dramatically more successful. I engaged a coach, invested in support and advice, and was able to launch a venture without affecting my personal finances, health, relationships, or lifestyle. In fact, I started earning 6-figures within 12-months of launching and equaled my corporate salary in just under 18 months. Besides being far less stressful, it was also easier and definitely more lucrative. My second venture was also life-changing, positive, and permanent. I was able to escape the inertia of working for someone else and became my own boss, making my own hours, and in full control of my professional life.?

What I started with was a deep yearning to do my own thing, remove the limits to my income, and not have to work for someone else ever again. The key to my entrepreneurial success was getting help in areas where I lacked expertise. I found someone with experience who had already been through what I was facing. ??

My fear of not having "the perfect idea," or possibly losing the lifestyle to which I had become accustomed and, frankly, the fear of failing (and all the associated embarrassment and shame) kept me stuck in a 9 to 5 job for two decades.

It wasn’t until my pain grew larger than my complacency that I finally stepped out of the corporate world for good back in 2013. Because I had failed at my first entrepreneurial attempt, I was hyper-aware of the fact that I needed help the second time around. So, I found a business coach and learned how to launch a sustainable, highly profitable new venture. Having a trusted advisor by my side gave me shortcuts to success, vital advice, and a means to reduce risk in my venture from concept through launch.

Having now worked with over 1,000 clients as a career and entrepreneur coach, I put together a comprehensive process to transition out of a 9 to 5 job and into a purpose-driven venture in 12-months or less. The “Entrepreneur Transition System” is a simple three-phase approach to plan, prepare, and launch a successful business and permanently escape the corporate world. Here's a visual overview of the process:

?The Process:

STEP 1. The first phase (#1 on the diagram above) starts with a comprehensive assessment of your diverse skills, experience, and interests and creates laser focus and a crystal-clear vision. This step provides the basis for making foundational decisions, capitalizing on your key strengths, figuring out what specific support you need, and building the business around what you bring to the table, as well as how to create or maintain your desired lifestyle. In order to be successful, you need to have a destination, milestones, and metrics to measure progress. The critical first step in the process that most entrepreneurs skip is to define your professional purpose - which lies at the center of what you love to do, what you do well, what the world needs, and what you can get paid well for.

STEP 2. Following the deep dive personal assessment, it's wise to identify your blindsides and limiting beliefs and to rid yourself of the "corporate hangover" that has kept you stuck in your job. Your mindset needs to transform from employee to employer and you need to figure out exactly what problems you can solve (and love solving) for someone else. This critical step will take you from having a corporate perspective to an entrepreneurial mindset and will move you from trading your time for a fixed salary to being compensated for your value.?

STEP 3. The final step of the Prepare phase is to assess what you'll need to sustain your finances, relationships, and current standard of living through your launch phase and until your business is profitable. Reviewing your expenses, trimming the fat, setting up sustainable accountability, and budgeting your time and finances in a transition plan will greatly prepare you to step seamlessly into a thriving business venture. A well-thought-out plan will provide a clear path forward and help you move through the rough patches of your transition.

STEP 4. Moving into the Plan phase starts by getting clear on the details of your venture. Whether or not you start with a clear idea of what business you want to run, at this stage you'll get crystal clear on what solutions you can and want to offer the world. It's good to do some personal assessments and to work with someone who can help you match your value to a viable product/service concept and with a target niche and an ideal customer profile. This will enable you to identify the people you need to talk to who will buy from you and find out what they really want and need.

STEP 5. Only once your destination is dialed-in, is it time to build a Business Plan. Most people start here and skip the first 3 or 4 steps of the process. Your plan doesn't need to be tens of pages long. In fact, your first version should only be 1-page and cover your offer, whom you'll serve, how you'll make money, your unique selling proposition and competitive advantage, cost structure, competition, and customer segments. I recommend using a Lean Canvas template to capture these aspects so that it is manageable, concise, and usable.

So that there is a clear outline of action for your company to take to reach its goals. The Business Plan will help you to:

• Identify and mitigate risks and disruptions
• Drive effective data-driven planning
• Attract top talent and partners, vendors, and talent
• Set appropriate metrics to measure progress and course correct
• Land investors and funding and apply for incubator and accelerator programs
• Get exceptionally clear on how you'll be successful

STEP 6. Once your business plan is created, the next step is to test and validate your business concept. This phase includes building prototypes,? applying for patents, conducting an "ask campaign" (where you find and ask multiple prospective customers about the pain points they have - and that you can help solve), conducting pro-bono work, and/or pre-selling your product/service to measure the market appetite for your product or service. This step provides invaluable information about how well-suited your solution is to the problem your business aims to solve. It will also uncover hidden flaws and oversights, refine your offering, and uncover actionable insights to further develop and refine your product or service before spending significant money and effort to build and deploy it.

Once all of your preparation and planning are done, you’ll be ready to move into the Launch phase of the process and start serving customers/clients.

STEP 7. This step is where the rubber hits the road and you’ll get support to set up the foundation of your business and make it fully operational. Only in this step - after defining and validating your business idea - do you want to spend money on setting up your business name, a la excellent advice provided in The $100 Start-up book. Now is when you be acquiring a Web domain name and building a website, establishing your e-commerce and hosting accounts, forming a legal entity, registering for taxes, applying for required business permits and licenses, acquiring business insurance, opening bank & merchant accounts, finding a good accountant and bookkeeping system, identifying the digital tools and technologies that will streamline your operations, and developing service contracts, and setting up the partnership agreements needed to take your venture from theoretical to fully operational.

STEP 8. With a well-defined business plan, a validated concept, and a functional operation, it will be much easier to raise the capital required to launch and scale your business. In this step, you create a compelling, credible, and concise investor presentation, practice your pitch, and develop all the supporting documentation that angels, VCs, private equity, crowdfunding, and/or family and friends will require. You'll want to include your vision and value proposition, what problem your business solves and why, the target market and opportunity, the features of your business model, your marketing and sales plan, your team, as well as your roadmap for growth and exit plan. Having your presentation and script down will make you come across to potential investors as confident, articulate, and fully capable of building a profitable and sustainable long-term business. With a good pitch and presentation, the prospect of fundraising goes from being a "scary proposition" to actually kind of fun. Mastering the "ask" will be key to getting sales, closing deals with vendors and partners, as well as fundraising, so it's imperative that you don't consider the word the word "sell" a 4-letter (bad) word. Selling is actually easy when focusing on the solution you bring to a problem instead of considering it a necessary evil. Before you get going, it would be worth the effort to read a few excellent sales books like Flip the Script or The Psychology of Selling.

STEP 9. In the final step of the Entrepreneur Transition System, I advise clients on Sales & Marketing Strategy to assure that they are on track with:?

• Pricing
• Promotion
• Social media marketing
• Advertising avenues
• Affiliate marketing

Before launching, you need to be 100% certain that you have an irresistible offer that appeals to your ideal client. It needs to include your unique selling proposition, benefits of your solution, how to address buyer resistance, bonuses and guarantees, and how to create a "category of one" so prospects don't compare you to lower-priced competitor offers. Here is where you polish your networking, consultation, and closing approaches that will enable you to effectively generate leads and close deals. It is also the place to start planning how you'll move from push marketing to pull marketing where people seek your business out instead of spending time and money on advertising.

?

There has never been a better time to step out of corporate. There is a plethora of excellent entrepreneur tools and resources available. Even with such technologies and apps, there is no substitute for experienced advice to help with sequencing, risk mitigation, streamlining, accountability, and launching a new venture. The Entrepreneur Transition System provides all the guidance, resources, and support needed to launch a venture that enables you to transition out of your current job with minimal disruption to your lifestyle. It’s designed for experienced business professionals who want more control, satisfaction, and truly unlimited growth potential. If this is something you want, then set up a date and time to do a deep dive exploration call to learn more about the system and the C-Synergy entrepreneur coaching program. Go to www.c-synergy.com or call me at 818-699-7869.